You can’t Un-Live the past. You just choose to forget

To change something is a choice - Unknown

Some memories can be so painful that you just want to forget them. While it is not possible to erase memories from your mind, there are strategies that you can use to make a memory less prominent. You can also do things to change the way a memory makes you feel and to replace unpleasant memories with new pleasant ones. Keep in mind that it is not always possible to forget a memory, so you may want to consider changing a situation if unpleasant memories are interfering with your life.

Think about what bothers you the most about the memory. Your next step is to pinpoint the most upsetting parts of the memory. Getting to the root of what bothers you the most will help you figure out what you need to forget. Write these specific things down so that you can work on forgetting them.

Are you determined to forget the past? I know many people don’t fully understand what that means. They wonder, “How can I forget something that’s happened to me?” But one definition of the word forget is to disregard intentionally or to overlook. In other words, you have to choose to disregard your past so that it doesn’t hold you back. You have to consciously make an effort to forget, to erase from your extant memory and let go. In other words, you have to choose to forget. That means the good and the bad. Sometimes our past victories keep us from rising higher as much as our past failures can. If we don’t let go of the old, we’ll never be able to embrace the new. It is just the way this works.

It doesn’t matter what’s happened in your past, it’s time to forget what lies behind and make the choice to look forward. Trust that God has a better future in store for you. Trust that He’s working behind the scenes on your behalf. Trust that He who promised is faithful — as you forget what lies behind and press forward, you’ll experience His power and blessing in a fresh, new way.

If all you do is attempt to relive something that has already happened, you’re missing out. The mental space you create by letting go of things that are already behind you gives you the ability to fill the space with something fresh and fun. Joel Osteen puts it aptly when he said “You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It won’t happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.”

(Culled from my book, The Path Less Traveled...https://www.amazon.com/Path-Less-Travelled-Reflections-Learning/dp/1540663507/ref=la_B01NAFINA0_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1518345927&sr=1-1).

10 Great Truths My Grandmother Told Me on Her 90th Birthday

1. There are thousands of people who live their entire lives on the default settings, never realizing they can customize everything. – Don’t settle for the default settings in life. Find your loves, your talents, your passions, and embrace them. Don’t hide behind other people’s decisions. Don’t let others tell you what you want. Design YOUR journey every step of the way! The life you create from doing something that moves you is far better than the life you get from sitting around wishing you were doing it.

2. The right journey is the ultimate destination. – The most prolific and beneficial experience in life is not in actually achieving something you want, but in seeking it. It’s the journey towards an endless horizon that matters—goals and dreams that move forward with you as you chase them. It’s all about meaningful pursuits—the “moving”—and what you learn along the way. Truly, the most important reason for moving from one place to another is to see what’s in between. In between is where passions are realized, love is found, strength is gained, and priceless life-long memories are made.

3. The willingness to do hard things opens great windows of opportunity. – One of the most important abilities you can develop in life is the willingness to accept and grow through times of difficulty and discomfort. Because the best things are often hard to come by, at least initially. And if you shy away from difficulty and discomfort, you’ll miss out on them entirely. Mastering a new skill is hard. Building a business is hard. Writing a book is hard. A marriage is hard. Parenting is hard. Staying healthy is hard. But all are amazing and worth every bit of effort you can muster. Realize this now. If you get good at doing hard things, you can do almost anything you put your mind to.

4. Small, incremental changes always change everything in the long run. – The concept of taking it one step at a time might seem absurdly obvious, but at some point we all get caught up in the moment and find ourselves yearning for instant gratification. We want what we want, and we want it now! And this yearning often tricks us into biting off more than we can chew. So, remind yourself: you can’t lift a thousand pounds all at once, yet you can easily lift one pound a thousand times. Tiny, repeated efforts will get you there, gradually.

5. No one wins a game of chess, or the game of life, by only moving forward. – Sometimes you have to move backward to put yourself in a position to win. Because sometimes, when it feels like you’re running into one dead end after another, it’s actually a sign that you’re not on the right path. Maybe you were meant to hang a left back when you took a right, and that’s perfectly fine. Life gradually teaches us that U-turns are allowed. So turn around when you must! There’s a big difference between giving up and starting over in the right direction.

6. The biggest disappointments in life are often the result of misplaced expectations. – When we are young our expectations are few, but as we age our expectations tend to balloon with each passing year. The key is to understand that tempering unrealistic expectations of how something “should be” can greatly reduce unnecessary stress and frustration. With a positive attitude and an open mind, we often find that life isn’t necessarily any easier or harder than we thought it was going to be; it’s just that “the easy” and “the hard” aren’t always the way we had anticipated, and don’t always occur when we expect them to. This isn’t a bad thing—it makes life interesting, if we are willing to see it that way.

7. Our character is often most evident at our highs and lows. – Be humble at the mountaintops, be strong in the valleys, and be faithful in between. And on particularly hard days when you feel that you can’t endure, remind yourself that your track record for getting through hard days is 100% so far.

8. Life changes from moment to moment, and so can you. – When hard times hit there’s a tendency to extrapolate and assume the future holds more of the same. For some strange reason this doesn’t happen as much when things are going well. A laugh, a smile, and a warm fuzzy feeling are fleeting and we know it. We take the good times at face value in the moment for all they’re worth and then we let them go. But when we’re depressed, struggling, or fearful, it’s easy to heap on more pain by assuming tomorrow will be exactly like today. This is a cyclical, self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don’t allow yourself to move past what happened, what was said, what was felt, you will look at your future through that same dirty lens, and nothing will be able to focus your foggy judgment. You will keep on justifying, reliving, and fueling a perception that is worn out and false.

9. You can fight and win the battles of today, only. – No matter what’s happening, you can resourcefully fight the battles of just one day. It’s only when you add the battles of those two mind-bending eternities, yesterday and tomorrow, that life gets overwhelmingly difficult and complicated.

10. Not being “OK” all the time is normal. – Sometimes not being OK is all we can register inside our tired brains and aching hearts. This emotion is human, and accepting it can feel like a small weight lifted. Truth be told, it’s not OK when someone you care about is no longer living and breathing and giving their amazing gifts to the world. It’s not OK when everything falls apart and you’re buried deep in the wreckage of a life you had planned for. It’s not OK when the bank account is nearly at zero, with no clear sign of a promising income opportunity. It’s not OK when someone you trusted betrays you and breaks your heart. It’s not OK when you’re emotionally drained to the point that you can’t get yourself out of bed in the morning. It’s not OK when you’re engulfed in failure or shame or a grief like you’ve never known before. Whatever your tough times consist of, sometimes it’s just NOT OK right now. And that realization is more than OK.

(MARCANDANGEL).

It Is Tough To Stay Successful

It is more difficult to stay on top than to get there - Mia Hamm

There is nothing more challenging in business and in life than maintaining success – it is far, far harder than achieving success in the first place. Companies that are able to align their capabilities and build distinctive advantages to perfectly meet current market opportunities cannot necessarily adapt to meet tomorrow’s. Time and again once exemplary companies are relegated to also-rans by their failure to respond to changes in customer need, technology or competitor set. Companies such as Netscape, Kodak, The Gap and IBM (maybe you want to add Nokia to the list) have all suffered this fate and of the top 100 US firms from 1917 only one had outperformed the market average over the subsequent 80 years, while 61 had ceased to exist.

How confident are you that today’s market leaders will still be at the top, or even around, in 10, 20 or 30 years’ time? There is nothing written in stone to suggest that Apple, Tesco, WalMart, Google or even Coca-Cola will be protected from future demise. My hunch, if history is anything to go by, is that several of them will struggle or even disappear in the next few decades.

During the press conference to announce that NOKIA was being acquired by Microsoft, Nokia’s CEO ended his speech saying this “we didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”. Upon saying that, all his management team, himself included, teared sadly. Nokia has been a respectable company. They didn’t do anything wrong in their business, however, the world changed too fast. Their opponents were too powerful. They missed out on learning, they missed out on changing, and thus they lost the opportunity at hand to make it big. Not only did they miss the opportunity to earn big money, they lost their chance of survival. The message of this story is, if you don’t change, you shall be removed from the competition. It’s not wrong if you don’t want to learn new things. However, if your thoughts and mindset cannot catch up with time, you will be eliminated. Thus, it is not enough to achieve successful, you need so much work to stay at the top because the competition will keep getting better.

In today’s footballing world, the name Cristiano Ronaldo (also popularly called CR7 but with full name as Cristiano Ronaldo Dos Santos Aveiro, born on February 5th, 1985), is unarguably a household name. Lovers of the round leather game have been thrilled and mesmerized by the skills of the multiple time World Footballer of the Year. No one will deny that CR7 is indeed a hard worker and this attitude he brings to any match he plays in. Teammates have confirmed that is one of his success secrets. The question you may want to ask yourself is, how desirous and hungry are you to achieve your set objectives and be the best in what you do? Those with burning desires seldom live average lives. Something on their inside keeps pushing them. However, the biggest secret is the level of work he puts in to stay on top. At Real Madrid, one of his teammates, Jese Rodriguez said, “I remember being called for my first training for Real Madrid. I went two hours earlier to impress the trainer. When I arrived, I saw Cristiano Ronaldo already training.” And that is why he is CR7. What is your own work ethics like? Do you have a time for practice and doing the work and putting in extra in order to become extraordinary and not remain an average? Nothing beats hard and smart work, and it is the only option you have if you are going to get ahead of the lot in the field of play in your career. Complacency is the undoing of many. Arriving and settling too soon. Thinking that the little success recorded is the end and all there is.

It is a cliché in the corporate life that getting to the top of your Industry is difficult – staying there is really, really difficult. We all know from lessons in life that it’s easier to fall off the perch than it is to get there for the simple reason that everyone wants to occupy the top slot. The same goes for vehicles. The Toyota Hilux has been South Africa’s best-selling vehicle of any type for bigger part of its life cycle which in this case goes back to 2005. However, nothing in life stands still and there’s no doubt in my mind that in the auto business, a 10-year life cycle is not far off double the industry average which has made the Hilux unusually vulnerable to attack. One vehicle, and it’s a four letter word beginning with F(ord), has been eating away at the Toyota’s supremacy to such an extent that it has usurped the top slot on the sales charts in some months. Among more than 1,000 companies that Fortune magazine included in its global rankings of the World's Most Admired Companies (WMACs), there are only 56 companies that have retained their status in the top 100 over the past decade. Similarly, in the Hay Group's research of the WMACs 2011 report, of the total 56 industries surveyed, there are 22 industries which have new leaders in their industries. For instance, in the petroleum industry, a long-time champion, Exxon Mobil, has been replaced by Stat Oil of Norway, Alcoa has been succeeded by Posco of South Korea in the steel industry, and in the telecom industry, AT&T has lost its crown to Telefonica of Spain. The Hay Group research identifies four key areas that adaptable firms use for achieving sustainable performance: focus on priorities for growth [focus on high-growth markets and fast-growing organizational units/subsidiaries], culture of innovation, employee involvement, and enabling employees to succeed, onboarding and integrating new staff into the organization; skills development; managers provide coaching, feedback and identify performance barriers. In life and in business, you must always be in shape, bring in you’re A-game at all time, be adaptable, stay innovative and be open to new ideas. This is the number one prerequisite to remain successful in an ever changing world.

(Culled from my book, The Path Less Traveled...https://www.amazon.com/Path-Less-Travelled-Reflections-Learning/dp/1540663507/ref=la_B01NAFINA0_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1518345927&sr=1-1)

One Insanely Popular Reason So Many of Us Are Unhappy

A Lack of Self-Discipline

Many of us lack the self-discipline skill set required to make consistent, meaningful progress.

Think about the most widespread sources of unhappiness we deal with in our lives—from laziness to lack of exercise to unhealthy vices to procrastination, and so on.

In most cases, problems like these are not caused not by a physical ailment, but by an conditioned weakness of the mind—a weakness that persistently urges us to avoid discomfort.

Too often we dream about the reward without the risk, the shine without the grind. But we can’t have a destination without a journey. And a journey always has costs. At the very least, we have to give up a little time and energy to take a step forward every day.

So, instead of dreaming about what you want right now, first ask yourself:

“What am I willing to give up to get it?”

Or, for those inevitably hard days:

“What is worth sacrificing for?”

Seriously, think about it…

If you want the six-pack abs, you have to also want the sore muscles and the healthy meals.

If you want the successful business, you have to also want the long work days and the possibility of failing twenty times to learn what you need to know to succeed in the long run.

If you want something in life, you have to also want the costs of getting it—you have to be willing to put in consistent effort. Otherwise, there’s no point in dreaming. In fact, as long as a meaningful dream is just sitting around in your head it’s doing far more harm than good. Your subconscious mind knows you’re procrastinating on something that’s important to you. The necessary work you keep postponing causes unhappiness, anxiety, fear, and usually more procrastination—a vicious cycle that continues to worsen until you interrupt it with ACTION.

Yeah, taking action seems simple enough but, really, it’s not. Because, again, what we truly need to do is often what we most feel like avoiding. This is a harsh reality…

How often are we stuck in a cycle of worry, fear, and other forms of over-thinking?
How often are we aimlessly distracted?
How often do we procrastinate?

(MARCANDANGEL).

The Art of Governance is not Rocket Science

They say time reveals everything, and nothing can be truer. As the last days of President Buhari pitters out, majority of Nigerians are reeling from almost four years of botched promises. For some, it was a complete fraud while for the unrepentant opposition, it was a confirmation of what they hoped. There are certain presidential dispensations that require a thorough retrospective work to determine their success or failure; the sense you get for the Buhari dispensation is that it has already judged itself and there might be no need to keep the jury out.

It is important to unequivocally state that anyone that dare say that our lot as a nation would have been better if the administration of president Goodluck Jonathan got a second chance, is either deluded or ignorant of the issues. The startling revelations uncovered by the Buhari administration simply showed that the nation was being raped, and it was only a matter of time before we self-implode. Yet, it wasn’t enough that the Buhari administration spent the first half of their tenure hurling blames.

What we have witnessed over the past few years have been anything but change. Power is still epileptic, cost of doing business remain dire, unemployment is still at an all-time high, systemic corruption is still on rampage, Boko Haram scourge has refused to go away, and then the new monster that has unraveled under this administration – herdsmen/farmers killings. There are plausible reasons to explain all of these misdemeanors but no ‘excuse’ will be good enough. Government was elected to find solutions not find excuses. The lethargy and indecisiveness of the president have been explained by his handlers to mean being calculative and cerebral. They will often say: This president takes his time. Total gibberish! The job of the president is one of judgement calls and decisions, and that is why he is bloody paid his salary. In numerous instances, president Buhari judgment calls have been found wanting. Not only is he slow in reaching decisions, the outcomes when he eventually does make up his mind are truly poor. His latest gaffe was visiting the Dapchi school, where hundreds of school girls were kidnapped after many weeks, and his handlers deemed it fit to roll out the red carpet. At a crime scene!

Even the eight National Assembly has to cover its face in shame. The so called ‘parliamentarians’ have spent a good part of their time seeking a change to the electoral calendar for their self-interest and pursuing mundane bills. The Judiciary cannot also be spared. Agree or not, the Judiciary has been a blocker rather than a enabler in the corruption fight. In all, it is a government that have failed at the first time of asking.

If the first four years of this administration is anything to go by, then it is obvious that it does not deserve a second term. The administration has depleted it credibility bank and should be quick to leave. Yet, the million dollar question is: where are the alternatives? If the current names being brandished across the major opposition parties are all we can afford, then let’s brace up for another tortuous four years. Surely, the art of governance is not so complicated. It is not rocket science!

10 Ways to Handle Stressful Life Transitions

1. MINDSET. MINDSET. MINDSET! Even in the middle of uncertainty you’ve got to continuously tell yourself that somehow, some way, “I will figure this out and make this work.” You’ve got to believe in yourself and your abilities and keep the positivity flowing through your mind.

2. Gratitude. During this transition, it’s so important to practice gratitude. Remember that no matter what you’re going through there is always something to be grateful for, somebody is always in a far worse situation, with a much better outlook on life. So why can’t you do the same?

3. Be vulnerable (in a good way). Being vulnerable does not mean you let people kick you when you’re down or take advantage of you. It means that you understand that feelings of fear, anxiety or sadness may come with the stress of transition and that it’s okay to talk about these things. Keeping them bottled up will only hinder you.

4. Get out there and be proactive! Try to be in control as much as you can of your transition, if you are leaving a familiar career then be proactive about finding a new position or learning about a new vocation.

5. Celebrate the small victories. You deserve the encouragement and dopamine rush. Give yourself a pat on the back for the small accomplishments along the way.

6. Let go of playing the “what if” game. It will drive you crazy with all the uncertainty floating around you. Focus on the here and now. How are you going to make it through this day? Don’t worry about 5 years from now. Just focus on doing the next right thing.

7. Know when to say “no” and when to say “yes.” This is so important. You’ve got to learn when to say “no” and when to say “yes” in healthy balance for you. If you’re always saying “yes” and running yourself into the ground then you need to know when to say “no” to preserve time for yourself. If you’re always saying “no” and possibly falling deeper into depression, you need to know when to say “yes” to encourage yourself to be around caring, loving people to bring you back to life.

8. Create a routine you can depend on. When stress is piling up, the best way to combat it is to control as many things as possible. There are two routines to set up, the first is a stress-response routine. When you start feel yourself getting overwhelmed you can turn to your stress-response routine to relieve the stress before it builds up. The second is to establish morning routine that puts you in control of how you start your day and can leave you feeling energized with a positive outlook for the day.

9. Shut out the noise. Noise is any information that is negative, false, unnecessary or that prevents you from perceiving a world in which success is possible. Noise is anything that distorts your positive reality and distracts you from achieving your goals. Cancel out noise that is unusable, untimely, hypothetical or distracting!

10. Ask for help. Don’t be timid to ask for help. No matter how you need support there are people to assist you! Don’t try to do everything yourself during this transition. Ask for help from others around you, the worse that could happen is that they say no and you’re stuck doing it yourself like you were planning to do anyway. Ease the load and dive into community!

- Erica Ferguson

9 Mindful Ways to Remain Calm When Others Are Angry

1. Get comfortable with pausing.

Don’t imagine the worst when you encounter a little drama. When someone is acting irrationally, don’t join them by rushing to make a negative judgment call. Instead, pause. Take a deep breath…

Sometimes good people behave poorly under stress. Don’t you? When you pause, it gives you space to collect your thoughts and it also allows the other person the space to take a deep breath with you. In most cases, that extra time and space is all we need.

2. Respect people’s differences.

Learn to respect the opinions of others. Just because someone does it differently doesn’t make it wrong. There are many roads to what’s right in this world. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

So choose your battles wisely. And just agree to disagree sometimes.

It is absolutely possible to connect with, and even appreciate the company of, someone you don’t completely agree with. When you make a commitment to remain neutral on matters that don’t matter that much, or speak respectfully about your disagreements, both parties can remain calm and move forward, pleasantly.

3. Be compassionate.

In the busyness of today’s world people tend to be worried, fearful, hurting and distracted about everything. The word compassion means “to suffer with.” When you can put yourself in the other person’s shoes, you give them the space to regroup, without putting any extra pressure on them.

Remember, we never know what’s really going on in someone’s life. When you interact with others in stressful environments, set an intention to be supportive by leaving the expectations, judgments and demands at the door.

4. Extend generosity and grace.

Everyone gets upset and loses their temper sometimes. Remind yourself that we are all more alike than we are different. When you catch yourself passing judgment, add “just like me sometimes” to the end of a sentence. For example:

That person is grouchy, just like me sometimes.
He is so darn impatient, just like me sometimes.
She is being rude, just like me sometimes.
etc.
Choose to let things GO. Let others off the hook. Take the high road today.

5. Don’t take people’s behavior personally.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if you take everything personally, you will be offended for the rest of your life. And there’s no reason for it. Even when it seems personal, rarely do people do things because of you, they do things because of them. You know this is true. You may not be able control all the things people say and do to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Make that decision for yourself today.

Let it go! Seriously, there is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you detach from other people’s beliefs and behaviors. The way people treat you is their problem, how you react is yours.

Everyone behaves the way they behave based on how they feel inside. Some people never learn how to effectively cope with their stressful emotions. When someone is acting obnoxious, it’s vital that you remain calm, no matter what. Don’t allow other people to knock you off your center.

Do what it takes to remain calm and address the situation from the inside out. That’s where your greatest power lies.

6. Talk less and learn to appreciate silence.

Don’t fall into an unnecessary argument just because you feel uncomfortable in silence. Don’t say things you’ll regret five minutes later just to fill your eardrums with noise. Anger and frustration begins internally. You have the capacity to choose your response to momentary discomfort.

Inhale. Exhale. A moment of silence in a moment of anger, can save you from a hundred moments of regret. Truth be told, you are often most powerful and influential in an argument when you are most silent. Others never expect silence. They expect yelling, drama, defensiveness, offensiveness, and lots of back and forth. They expect to leap into the ring and fight. They are ready to defend themselves with sly remarks cocked and loaded. But your mindful silence? That can really disarm them.

7. Create a morning ritual that starts your day off right.

Don’t rush into your day by checking your phone or email. Don’t put yourself it a stressful state of mind that’s incapable of dealing positively with other people’s negativity. Create time and space for a morning ritual that’s focused and peaceful.

Here’s part of my morning ritual: I take ten deep breaths before getting out of bed, I stand up and stretch, and then do ten minutes of meditation.

8. Cope using healthy choices and alternatives.

When we face stressful situations, we often calm or soothe ourselves with unhealthy choices—drinking alcohol, eating sugary snacks, smoking, etc. It’s easy to respond to anger with anger and unhealthy distractions.

Notice how you cope with stress. Replace bad coping habits with healthy coping habits. Take a walk in a green space. Make a cup of tea and sit quietly with your thoughts. Listen to some pleasant music. Write in your journal. Talk it out with a close friend. Healthy coping habits make happy people.

9. Remind yourself of what’s right, and create more of it in the world.

Keeping “the positive” in mind helps you move beyond the negativity around you.

At the end of the day, reflect on your small daily wins and all the little things that are going well. Count three small events on your fingers that happened during the day that you’re undoubtedly grateful for. For example:

My family and I made it home safely from work and school today.
My spouse and I shared a laugh.
Our meals filled our stomachs.
etc.
And pay it forward when you get a chance too. Let your positivity empower you to think kindly of others, speak kindly to others, and do kind things for others. Kindness always makes a difference. Create the outcomes others might be grateful for at the end of their day. Be a bigger part of what’s right in this world.

MARCANDANGEL.